


In the Aftermath

by cenotaphy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Needs a Hug, Coda, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Dean, Emotionally Mature Sam, Gen, Hugs all around, Hurt/Comfort, It's like good cop bad cop but with feelings, Post-Episode: s12e12 Stuck In The Middle (With You), Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 12, Team Free Will, That's kind of their MO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9911984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy
Summary: Cas may be physically recovered from the events of 12x12, but that doesn't mean he's okay. But Dean and Sam are there for him. Because, after all, you don't leave family behind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A hasty, fluffy 12x12 coda for you guys! Side note: I'm still not over this episode.

Dean wakes from a dream in which Crowley doesn't think to break Michael's lance; in which Cas dies by degrees on the ground in front of them, his agonized eyes turned up toward the ceiling, black sludge pouring from his mouth. In the dream, Dean wants to move, to speak, to do something, but he is rooted in place and his tongue is paralyzed against the roof of his mouth, and he can only watch helplessly as the light fades from Cas's eyes, as Cas's skin calcifies between the shadowy fissures left by the lance's magic. Cas's body goes limp, his head lolls to the side, and then Dean wakes up, his heart pounding, his mouth open in a soundless gasp, his hands fisted in the scratchy motel room sheets.

He lies awake in the darkness for a moment, staring into the blankness of the ceiling, trying to slow his breathing, reminding himself that Cas is alive, that _he's alive he's alive he didn't die thank fucking god_. At some point he seems to have dragged half the coverlet up under his chin, and his legs are freezing. Surreptitiously, he touches his face, finds it wet.

His eyes adjust to the semi-darkness—it's one of the crappier places they've stayed in, and light from the street is filtering through the flimsy curtains—and he gives himself another moment to lie still, feeling the last traces of tears dry on his face, listening to the soft, rhythmic sounds of Sam's breathing. Mary had gotten her own room, but Dean hadn't been ready to let Cas out of his sight, and it wasn't like Cas needed a bed, anyway. So Cas had stayed in their room.  _He's with us. He's alive_. But the dream lingers like a bad taste in the mouth, and it had felt so real that before he can help himself he's turning his head toward the window. Just to check. Just to be sure.

Cas isn't in the armchair by the window, where he'd been sitting when they had turned off the lights, but Dean doesn't have time to panic because the next thing he registers is the weight near the foot of his bed.

Cas is sitting on the edge of the mattress, his head bowed. One hand is resting on his own knee; the other is blocked from view, but Dean can feel, through the thin fabric of the sheet, the faintest of pressures against his ankle, and as he turns his attention to that light touch he realizes that it's Cas's hand he's feeling. That Cas's hand is—not _holding_ , surely, but resting against—his ankle through the sheet, that Cas's fingers are curled over the curve of his foot like it's a lifeline.

Dean holds his breath. Lies as still as a statue, not daring to move or speak. Cas doesn't seem to realize he's awake, for he's still just sitting on the edge of the bed, silhouetted against the pale light from the window, his shoulders slumped, the profile of his face in sharp relief.

A long minute passes, during which Dean lies frozen, staring at the dim outline of his best friend. Then, suddenly, a strange sort of full-body shudder goes through Cas, and he makes a ragged, barely audible noise and lurches up off the bed. Dean nearly calls out to him, but he hesitates, wary of making himself known, of catching Cas out in this vulnerable moment. Before, he can make up his mind, Cas is moving, not back to the armchair but towards the bathroom. Dean listens to the door click shut behind the angel, but doesn't see any light spring up through the crack, and he frowns in confusion for a moment before another, much more familiar sound starts filtering through the door.

 _Fuck_.

The noise is slight, muffled by the door, but in the other bed, Sam bolts upright. Dean sits up too, kicking off the blankets and swinging his legs onto the floor. His ankle tingles where Cas's hand had rested on it, a phantom touch like an extension of his dream.

"Light sleeper much?" he mutters to Sam, throwing the words over his shoulder as he crosses the space to the bathroom.

Sam's voice is a low rasp, punctuated by the click of the bedside lamp switching on. "Wasn't asleep." Dean pushes that into the back of his mind to worry about later, after the more immediate problem is dealt with.

Cas doesn't turn around when the bathroom door swings open, just bows his head over the toilet and retches again.

"Cas, man." Dean moves to stand behind him, puts a hand on his shoulder. "You gotta—" He's at a loss for what to say next. Cas has got to—what? Calm down? Breathe deeply? Eat food he doesn't need, so that he can actually vomit something up, instead of this empty heaving? He looks helplessly at Sam, who's hovering in the doorway, probably because the tiny bathroom can barely hold two people, let alone three.

"I can still—" Cas is gripping the edge of the toilet seat so hard that his knuckles are white. "Dean, Sam—I can still _taste it_ —"

Dean thinks about that, then. Thinks about the ooze flowing down Cas's chin, thinks about what it must be like to have your mouth filled with your own liquefied insides. Fuck, that would mess anyone up, and _Cas_ —Cas tastes molecules, remembers everything in stark detail, and has probably never vomited in his life.

He doesn't notice Sam leaving until his brother reappears in the doorway, holding a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash. Dean backs up and squeezes over to sit on the edge of the bathtub. Sam takes his place, rubbing soothing circles on Cas's back with one hand, proffering the mouthwash with the other.

"This'll help," Sam says. "Trust me."

Cas looks dubiously at the bright green fluid. "I don't think I'm having a purely physical reaction, Sam—"

"That taste that you can't get off your tongue?" says Sam. "That burn in the back of your throat? The way everything you smell makes you nauseous? The way you feel so disgusted that you think you'll die if you can't get it out of you?"

Cas flinches. So does Dean, though he thinks he covers it up well enough that Sam, whose attention is still focused on Cas, doesn't notice. Obviously, Dean and Sam have both done their fair share of vomiting, whether it's alcohol, illness, or magic-related. But the familiarity in Sam's tone speaks to a kind of weary intimacy with the concept, and that makes something—some complex, many-fanged creature comprised of guilt and anger and grief and thwarted protectiveness—stir uneasily in the pit of Dean's stomach.

"Listen, Cas," Sam is saying. He throws a diffident glance at Dean, hesitates, then keeps going. "I know you feel like there's still something—something messed-up, inside you, something poisonous. Something broken. Trust me, I know what that's like." Dean looks away, knotting his jaw. The fanged creature twists in his gut again. He curls his fingers into the edge of the tub. _Dammit, Sammy_.

Sam squeezes Cas's shoulder, his voice low. "I know what it's like to want it _out_ of you, to want to force it out however you can. But I promise, it's gone. It doesn't own you. It's _gone_ , and you are safe, and we are right here."

Cas, now staring into the depths of the toilet bowl, nods once, jerkily. He takes the mouthwash and slowly uncaps it.

"Don't drink it," Dean puts in hastily. He's remembering how Cas once told him, thoughtfully, that he didn't see why toothpaste wasn't used as an ingredient in any human dishes. "Just—swish it around your mouth, spit it back out." He thinks now is probably not the time to give Cas any pointers on gargling.

Cas tips about half the bottle into his mouth, then obediently dips his head and spits it all back out into the toilet.

In the pause that follows, Sam clears his throat quietly. And shit, Dean can read his brother like a book; he can _see_ where this is heading, and it doesn't matter that he knows it _needs_ to be said—he's not ready for that. He clears his throat, about five times more loudly than Sam. Pretends not to notice his brother's consequent  glare.

"Alright, you know what you need, Cas, is rest." He stands, nods to Sam, who looks exasperated but, thank god, doesn't call Dean out on his crap. Together they help Cas up from the toilet.

"I can walk," Cas mutters. But he looks drained, wrecked, and he doesn't resist as Dean and Sam lead him back into the main room.

"Nope," says Dean, as Cas takes a step towards the chair by the window. "You just got stabbed with the fucking Lance of Michael, you're getting a damn bed tonight. I'll take the chair."

"I don't sleep," Cas objects.

"Still more comfortable than a chair." He helps Cas over to the bed, eases him down onto the edge of the mattress. Cas is shivering—and it's definitely too damn cold in this room, but Dean also suspects the shivers have nothing to do with the temperature. Sam stands anxiously by the bedside, his hand floating out to touch Cas lightly on the shoulder.

" _You_ need to sleep—" Cas protests again.

"Relax," says Dean. "I've slept in worse places." On impulse, he drops to one knee and unties Cas's shoes, pulls them off.

"Dean," Cas murmurs. "What—"

Dean ignores him. He's got Cas's ankle in one hand and he's suddenly thinking about how he'd woken up to the opposite situation, to Cas resting his fingers so carefully against Dean's foot. He thinks about what it's like to die, or nearly die, and come back from the brink and yet not be sure if you're _really_ back, if the things around you are actually real and solid, or if they're just fragments, fading, leaving you behind in the dark.

"C'mon," he says. He rises, ignoring the creakiness of his knee, and uses one hand to catch Cas's legs and swing them fully onto the mattress. Cas scoots back towards the headboard, looking confused, and Dean sits next to him, on the edge of the bed, facing the angel. He pats Cas's knee. Clears his throat awkwardly. And that's as far as his plan got, really, but then Sam is right there on the other side of the bed, sitting down carefully with a determined look in his eye.

 _Shit_ , Dean thinks.

"Cas," says Sam slowly. He glances up expectantly, as if waiting for Dean to pick up the thought, carry it forward. But Dean can't—even though he knows where Sam is going with this. He can sense the direction this conversation is moving, as if it's a freight train—not one on which he's a passenger, but one that's barreling down the tracks toward him.

Sam sighs. "Cas," he says again. "Cas, you know that we love you too, right?"

"I..." Cas falters, and then, instead of answering, he looks down at his lap, where his hands are resting palm-up, limp, the fingers slightly curled. "Back at the barn, you stayed."

 _Well, duh,_ Dean thinks.

Cas shivers. "You stayed," he repeats softly. "You didn't leave me behind." His tone is wondering, disbelieving.

"Cas," says Dean, half-exasperated. "Of course we didn't fucking le—"

But Cas looks up and meets his gaze suddenly, and there's so much fucking _terror_ in his eyes that the word shrivels, mid-syllable, on Dean's tongue. Because the real _of course_ here is that _of course_ Cas gets left behind. Cas gets left behind all the time—by angels, by his friends, by his allies, by _God_. By Sam. By Dean.

 _Last night was the first time we got it right_ , Dean thinks. _He's family, he's—he's our best friend—he's everything—and last night was the first time we actually managed to do right by him, and how fucking messed-up is that_.

Sam puts his hand over Cas's palm. "Cas, we stayed because that's what we do, okay? We fight for each other. That's what you would have done for us."

Cas looks away, his breath hitching audibly. "I thought I was going to die," he chokes out. "I thought I was going to _die_ —I could feel the poison, all of it, inside me, eating me alive, and I thought—I thought—" He rocks forward, his face twisted in remembered agony, and Dean puts up a hand almost automatically, holds Cas by the shoulder. Feels the bone-deep tremors  running through Cas, as if Cas is shaking apart at the seams.

"I thought I was—I _knew_ I was going to die," Cas gasps out, "and you—you didn't leave—me— _you didn't leave me behind_ —" His voice cracks.

 _Get used to it_ , Dean thinks. _Because we're never fucking leaving you behind again_.

He opens his mouth to say as much, and then Cas lowers his head and starts to cry.

Dean's brain blanks out for a moment and he just stares, mouth open, words dying in the back of his throat. Because yeah, dealing with tears is maybe not his strong suit, ever, but this is _Cas_. This is Cas, whom Dean's _never_ seen cry. Those few charged moments in the barn a couple of hours ago—Cas's jaw clenching with effort, Cas's eyelashes wet, Cas's lips trembling in a way that had made Dean want to find and skewer Ramiel right then and there, Prince of Hell or not, because how _dare_ that asshole make someone Dean cared about so vulnerable, wreck them like this, tear into them like this—were as close as it ever got, and that was when Cas thought he was fucking _dying_. And now here Cas is, shoulders shaking, soft sobs working their way out of his throat, tears visible for a moment before he bows his head.

Dean looks helplessly at Sam, who gives him another award-winning _get-your-shit-together_ glare.

Dean sighs. Screws his courage to the sticking place.

"Cas," he says. Puts everything into that word. _You're family, you're our best friend, of course we_ — _of course we_ — He puts his hand on the back of Cas's neck, pulls the angel towards him, wraps an arm around Cas. "It's okay." Cas tenses for a moment, but then everything seems to drain out of him and he slumps into Dean, resting his forehead against Dean's shoulder. Dean can feel the wet warmth of Cas's tears dampening his t-shirt. He can feel Cas's hand against his chest, clutching the fabric there. "It's okay," he repeats, and tightens his hold.

That's not enough—that's not _nearly_ enough, and Dean knows it. But it's all he can manage for now. He shifts so that he can sit with his back to the wall, even though it means his ass is half on the bedside table because his sasquatch little brother is taking up half the mattress on Cas's other side. He sees that Sam is still holding Cas's hand, is about to make a mental note to tease his brother about it later, until he notices how tightly Cas is gripping back. Until he glances down and finds that Cas's fingers are still curled in the fabric of Dean's t-shirt. Until he looks, again, at Cas's face, watches Cas's jaw knotting as the angel blinks back more tears.

 _Ah_ , Dean thinks. It's about life, he thinks—about _living_. About what's solid, what's real, what's _there_ —about trying to push back the abyss, the nearness of death.

"Alright," he says out loud. Sam glances at him, startled. "Alright, screw sleep, anyway." He swings his legs up onto the bed and grabs the TV remote.

"We've got a long haul tomorrow," says Sam, amused, but he's a damn hypocrite because he's also lifting his legs onto the bed—which is definitely too small for this—and settling comfortably back against the headboard.

"Mom can drive," says Dean. His arm is still around Cas's shoulders. Their hips are pressed together, their knees bump. Dean lets it happen. Maybe even deliberately shifts a little closer.  _Feel that, Cas? We're real. We're here_.

"Dean," says Cas, his voice raspy, uncertain. "Sam. You need your sleep—"

"No," says Dean. "We need _you_ to be okay."

" _Dean_ —" says Cas again.

"Shut up." Dean switches on the TV. "Watch some Animal Planet."

He can feel Cas staring at him, and he keeps his expression open, sincere. Squeezes Cas's shoulder. Finally he hears and feels the angel exhale softly. Cas's grip on his shirt loosens, though only marginally. On-screen, someone is talking about rescue dogs. Sam, the fucking softie, makes an interested noise and tugs the covers over his legs, leaning into Cas, his flannel-covered shoulder—why the hell is Sam wearing flannel to bed?—brushing over Dean's hand.

Some time much later, during the commercial break between a shark documentary and what looks like it's going to be some kind of stupid are-chupacabras-real bullshit, Cas says, again, in a tiny whisper, that he loves them. Sam, who is dozing with his head on Cas's shoulder, cutting off most of the circulation to Dean's fingers, yawns and says it back.

And some time much, _much_ later, as dawn is starting to lighten the sky outside the wispy curtains, Dean says it back too.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are always, always appreciated!


End file.
